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Red, White & Royal Blue’ Review: Two Studly Scions Attract in Affirmational Queer Rom-Com

Matthew López uses the
opportunity to demonstrate that gay love stories needn’t end in
heartbreak and tears. The “prince of England’s hearts” falls for the American president’s son
(or is it the other way around?) in “Red, White & Royal Blue,” an
effervescent gay rom-com that might be easily dismissed as a mere
trifle, were it not for the still-historic novelty of its existence.

Matthew López’s goes to
normalize queer romance on-screen, taking a classic “chick flick”
premise — the kind once reserved for Mandy Moore and Amanda Bynes
movies, à la “Chasing Liberty” or “What a Girl Wants” — and recasting it
with dudes.

What is surprising is just how far López is willing to take their attraction, featuring sex scenes that don’t shy away from reflecting what these two studs do to one another without revealing any body parts that might offend the Japanese censors.

Getting to know one another after one early tryst, Henry and Alex discuss their unwieldy full names. “I thought Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz was a mouthful,” says the first son, to which Welsh prince Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor suggestively replies, “He is.”

Anyone watching “Red, White & Royal Blue” is surely prepared to accept this couple, but that’s hardly true of the wider world.

López takes the Trojan horse approach to raise issues of HIV prevention,
consent and personal privacy alongside the film’s most important
political point: namely, that queer romances can be every bit as corny
as their hetero counterparts. As political platforms go, that’s hope and
change all rolled up in one.

https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/red-white-and-royal-blue-review-1235692933/#!

variety.com

‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ Review: Two Studly Scions Attract in Affirmational Queer Rom-Com

The “prince of England’s hearts” falls for the American president’s son (or is it the other way around?) in “Red, White & Royal Blue,” an effervescent gay rom-com that might be easily dismissed…